


Dragonheart

by FireFaceOutlook



Category: One Piece
Genre: ASL Brothers, ASL Brothers are a pack, Ace is a werewolf, Ace is the pack leader, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Being a dragon is "illegal", Gen, Luffy is a shapeshifter, M/M, More like a shape-manipulator, Sabo is a dragon, kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 06:39:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13676319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireFaceOutlook/pseuds/FireFaceOutlook
Summary: Dark blue scales, tinted maroon from his blood, had pushed their way out of his skin like thorns from a rose stem.  Taking a bath in the middle of the night to rid himself of the blood and throwing away the ruined shirt, Sabo spent the rest of the night pursuing answers on his laptop, finding that the appearance of scales was just stage one of a fledgling dragon's shift to adulthood.  Sabo felt ill to his stomach.





	Dragonheart

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N: This is an AU where Modern Day and Fantasy come together (kind of). Humans and non-humans live together in peace (mostly) due to their ancestors coming together in the past to fight off the looming threat of dragons, the most powerful mythical creatures in existence. Dragons are all but wiped out now, and anyone discovered to have dragon's blood in their veins is to be reported to the government to be executed.**   
>  **(Also, there used to be a different story by this name on my account, but this is my remake of the chapter I originally posted, so if you read the original one, I suggest reading this one, because it's different.)**   
>  **Enjoy!**

Even with the general peace and harmony between mankind and the supernatural, over half of the human population was blinded by the Veil, a magical “barrier” of sorts that allows non-humans to disguise themselves in public. If a human wasn't raised learning about what laid beyond the Veil, they would go through their lives without ever knowing any different, unless they happened to have a brush with the supernatural. Sadly, that was the case for Sabo.

Outlook Sabo was born to a fairly high-status family whose ancestors decided, at some point, that involving themselves with the inhuman monsters of the world wasn't worth their time, and none of the bloodline since then had ever had a desire to see through the Veil. Even Sabo, who had an unusual interest in fairy tales and myths over his studies, didn't have the sight. His life was boring and controlled by his parents, and he probably wouldn't have made it through high school without his friends, Ace and Luffy. 

Ace and Sabo liked to compete in a lot of things, and Luffy usually joined in too and caused them a lot of trouble. But that was okay, since he was their acclaimed little brother. Roughhousing was the norm between the three of them, especially when it came to hanging out at Ace and Luffy's house for feasts. (Well, lunch, actually, but with the amount the three of them could fit into their stomachs, it might as well have been a feast.) There was an incident when Sabo and Ace were seventeen, and Luffy was fourteen, where Ace bit Sabo instead of the meat he was trying to steal from the blond's hand. He actually broke skin, and then proceeded to freak out. Being **Blind*** , Sabo didn't understand Ace's reaction, considering they all had bloodied each other before in spars, but he let Ace wrap his hand and they returned to eating. Sabo pretended not to notice the frequent glances Ace sent him, or the fact that Luffy talked less during the rest of the meal. Everything seemed fine over the next couple of weeks, and the other two eventually returned to their normal selves, apparently not concerned anymore about whatever had been going on in their minds that night.

Then the next full moon came around.

The morning after the first night, Sabo woke up with blood staining the rug of his apartment. There was news of a low-class criminal being murdered in a way that looked more like an animal mauling, and it made him panic and lock himself in his apartment, shaken because he feared that he had something to do with that. For the next three days, he was greeted by blood smeared across all kinds of surfaces: the door, the windows, even in his bathroom! He got away with a whole week of avoiding any social contact before Ace kicked his door down (literally), tired of Sabo avoiding his and Luffy's calls. Though, when Sabo explained what happened, Ace was the one who ended up apologizing, and that was when Sabo finally learned about what the Veil had hidden from him up until that point.

Ace was a werewolf, having been turned at around age ten, which was why he was so finicky after biting Sabo. Apparently, bites from pure-blood werewolves almost always turned someone into one of them, but half-bloods only had a third of a chance of that happening. And he'd marked Sabo's apartment with the blood of his prey to keep creatures like vampires away. Sabo would've laughed off the fact that werewolves and vampires existed if it wasn't for the fact that Ace wasn't one for elaborate lies, plus, Luffy agreed to it with a straight face. (Luffy was one of the worst liars Sabo had ever met.) Since that day, Luffy and Ace taught him how to see through the Veil and even use some magic of his own. And by the time he was twenty-three, he was practically a natural at controlling “Haki,” especially Observational Haki. He could even fine tune it so he could sense only humans or only non-humans at any given moment. He was rather proud of his ability, as simple as it was (according to Ace). It was the only connection he really had to the other side of the Veil.

  


Or so he thought.

  


“Okay, that’s enough, I forfeit,” Sabo panted as he remained on one knee before Koala, his sparring partner for that afternoon, and mentally tallied that final point as hers. They were now tied with twenty-five wins each. (He wanted to go on to one-hundred matches, like he did with his brothers, but he knew Koala would never agree to that.) 

Sabo had met Koala at the very gym they were sparring in, and they got along well. She was smart and strong, and she didn't take bullshit from anyone. Sabo liked watching men twice her size get taken down after cockily challenging her. He made that mistake his first time, too, and got his ass handed to him. He was glad they were friends now. 

Koala offered a hand and pulled him to his feet when he grabbed it. Both of their faces gleamed with sweat in the light from the ceiling. Koala picked up her hat from against the wall, tucking it under her arm as she wiped her forehead.

“I’m going to take a shower and go home,” she announced. “Will I see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, of course,” Sabo said with a nod. “I’m going to do some cooling down stretches. Have a good night, Koala.”

Koala playfully rolled her eyes, but turned to enter the female locker room. Sabo turned away as well, reaching down to grip the bottom of his sweat-soaked shirt and pulling it up over his head. As he balled it up, ready to toss it aside for now, he heard a sharp gasp from behind him that made him jump -- he thought Koala had left. He turned his head to look at her, but he caught sight of a darkening of his shoulder. He looked down at it, startled to find a odd bruise of sorts discoloring his pale skin. He didn’t remember being struck there by Koala, but he must’ve been. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed because of the adrenaline.

“You should have someone check that out,” Koala advised before she stepped inside the locker room.

Sabo prodded at the dark area, but it didn’t hurt, so he shrugged it off and began his stretches. It would go away on its own, no doubt. It wasn't like he never walked around with bruises, even if it decided to stay on his skin – he swore it was spreading – for the next few weeks. He didn’t take off his shirt around Ace or Luffy when he realized it wasn’t going away, not wanting to concern them. It wasn’t an issue.

  


It was turning into an issue.

A few weeks after first discovering the coloration, Sabo was startled to find that there was something – many somethings – growing beneath his skin. They felt like cysts, sort of, but he was fairly certain that they were not because of the strange hue of his skin and the lack of pain when he put pressure on them. In fact, they itched like bug bites when he put on his clothes, but that was the end of it. He began wearing darker shirts to the gym instead of his usual white ones because the blue was visible through the pale fabric and he didn’t want anyone to worry about him. And besides, the cyst-like bumps stopped spreading once they took over a good chunk of his shoulders and along his collarbone. They didn't hinder his every day life or anything, so he kind of pushed them to the back of his mind, only pondering over them in the shower or on sleepless nights. He didn't want to go to a doctor about it, though. He didn't know any doctors who could see through the Veil, and he didn't want to go to an ignorant human doctor if it was something supernaturally related.

  


Sabo had come down with a fever. He'd only ever been sick before as a child, and it'd only been once, when he was recovering from third-degree burns.

“I thought you were the one who took care of himself best,” Ace snorted, flicking Sabo's head, obviously unimpressed that Sabo had shown up to have lunch with him and Luffy like normal despite his condition. “You need to go to bed. You won't get better if you don't rest.”

“Ace is right,” Luffy agreed, nodding sagely before dragging a large piece of meat out from behind his back. “Or maybe you just need some meat!”

“Meat doesn't solve everything, Luffy!” Ace shouted, punching him on the head.

“But--”

“Sabo, just go lay down on my bed,” Ace interrupted. “I'll try to save you some food, in case you feel like eating later, okay?”

Sabo's expression scrunched up, as if he were going to protest, but then he just sighed and dragged his feet as he did as he was told. Ace may protest otherwise, but he was a pretty good “pack leader” for their little trio. He was their rock, essentially, and he cared a lot, whether he voiced it aloud or just showed it in his own way.

  


Sabo ended up going home before the afternoon was even over, laying motionless on his bed even after Luffy stopped by to deliver dinner in the evening. (Luffy cared as much as, if not more than, Ace. He proved that by just nibbling on Sabo's food while on his way to drop it off.) Sabo wasn't hungry, though, and he was extremely uncomfortable. It was too hot under the blankets, yet his body felt way too cold. And to make manners worse, his shoulders, where the cysts were, felt like they were on fire. And that was before the bleeding even began.

Sabo had just rolled onto his side, trying to get comfortable, and there was a sickening pop from his shoulder. The pain increased tenfold and Sabo was quick to roll onto his back again, arching with a sharp gasp as even more agony flooded him and wet warmth made itself known. This went on for what seemed like hours, and when it was finally over, Sabo was shaking, no longer feeling like he was sick, but exhausted beyond belief. He climbed out of bed, fumbling for the low-lit lamp nearby, and once the room was bright enough for him to see properly, he approached the mirror on his wall, tearing off his shirt with great haste when he saw the fabric was stained red, darkest around his shoulders. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Dark blue scales, tinted maroon from his blood, had pushed their way out of his skin like thorns from a rose stem. Taking a bath in the middle of the night to rid himself of the blood and throwing away the ruined shirt, Sabo spent the rest of the night pursuing answers on his laptop, finding that the appearance of scales was just stage one of a fledgling dragon's shift to adulthood. Sabo felt ill to his stomach.

  


Sabo was turning into a dragon. There was no mistaking the armor-like scales that were overlapping each other as they grew and spread across his skin, only absent around, ironically, the permanent burn scars in his skin. (There were rumors that the fire that ravaged Sabo's home, and the homes of other upper-class families in the area, was that of a dragon, and it would make sense that dragon fire could cause damage that would prevent the growth of dragon scales, right?)

Sabo was terrified. He didn’t understand why this was happening, but there was no mistaking that it was. He wondered if he would be put into a similar state as Ace, forced to change and become feral depending on the phase of the moon. He was afraid of being a danger to everyone around him, especially those he was close to, but even more than that, he was terrified of the prospect of the government ever finding out. After all, anyone at all related to dragons were killed off. He had to tell someone, though, before the secret drove him crazy, and who better to tell than Ace?

As far as his worries about Ace's reaction went, he took it pretty well. All he'd done so far was gaze wide-eyed and drop-jawed at his bare torso, the upper half gleaming with cobalt blue scales while the blue discoloration from before had risen to mark where future scales had yet to grow. Sabo was a little nervous about what Ace would do when he snapped out of his shock, but if he couldn't trust his closest friend – who was like a brother to him –, then who could he trust?

“Sabo...” he mumbled, hand lifting and brushing over the scattered patches of scales winding around the ragged burns on his left arm. “Heh. No wonder you started smelling like sulfur. We probably shouldn't tell Luffy just yet.”

Sabo hadn’t been sure what to feel up to this point, but the lack of hatred and disgust in Ace's voice – just concern and a lighthearted attempt at humor – made tears rise to his eyes, though he made an attempt to blink them away (Ace never did like crybabies), an effort made fruitless when Ace wrapped his arms around him.

“You’ll be okay,” he soothed as Sabo's body was wracked with sobs. “Everything will be fine.”

_Yes,_ he thought distantly. _Ace is a very good pack leader._

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N: *Blind is referring to not being able to see through the Veil. Also, what do you guys think so far? Any suggestions for future chapters? Let me know in the comments!**   
>  _Prompt: First appearing as a discoloration on your shoulders, now the scales have spread across your chest and arms. You’re changing, and you’re not sure how much longer you can keep it a secret from the ones you love._


End file.
